The Theology of the Ugly Duckling by Jen Simpkins

Welcome to this online worship service. We may be apart and distant, yet we are home to each other as we gather in this new way.

 

Prelude – “Beautiful”  by Christina Aguilera – Covered by Ivo Soares

 

Call To Worship – by Rev. Meg Barnhouse

We gather to worship, our hearts alive with hope that here we will be truly seen, that here we will be welcomed into the garden of this community, where the simple and the elegant, the fluted and frilled, the shy and the dramatic complement one another and are treasured. May we know that here, each contributes in their way to the beauty of the whole. Come, let us worship together, all genders, sexualities, politics, clappers and non-clappers, progressive or conservative, may we root ourselves in the values of this faith: compassion and courage, transcendence, justice and transformation

 

Chalice Lighting – “We are A People of Beauty” by Kimberlee Tomczak Carlson
Recognizing the beauty around us and within us, in voice and spirit, we gather to light our chalice.
May we savor the beauty of our abundance and diversity, always cherishing one another and our earth.
May we remember to inhale the lushness in life knowing that we are a people of beauty.

 

Peace be with you and with all living things

 

Gesture of Friendship

 

Message for All Ages – The Big Umbrella

 

Children’s Blessing
We are…
We are blessed…
We are blessed by being…
We are blessed by being here…
We are blessed by being here together.

 

Reading – “A day at the Beach with my Aunties” (adapted) by Anne Lamott
Until recently, I was afraid to say it out loud, that I am beautiful, for fear that people would look at each other with amusement, think to themselves, Well, isn’t that nice. I was afraid people would look with eyes of cruel scrutiny and see a thinnish woman in profoundly late youth with tired wrinkly eyes, flabby thighs and scriggly-scraggly hair, as my son once described it; and scriggly-scraggly teeth. I was afraid they would see the spidery veins on my legs, and that my bottom appears to be making a break for freedom from the confines of the rear end of my swimsuit; afraid that they would notice all the parts of me that really need to have the fat vacuumed out, or at least carpet-swept. But somehow I was not afraid to say it anymore. On that plane with all these beautiful young girls walking up the aisle as if it were a runway, if someone had exhibited so much as an angstrom of doubt about my beauty, I would have said that they could come kiss my big, beautiful, dimply, droopy butt. However, this was before I got to the beach.

 

Reflection – “The Ugly Duckling” by Jen Simpkins

Hymn – “How Could Anyone” Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus

 

Chalice Extinguishing by Rev. Amanda Poppei.
Spirit of Life and Love, help us to be known and to know each other. Let us see the beauty spilling out. Keep us vulnerable and open, speaking our own truth and listening—always listening—to the truths of others

 

Postlude – Hymn #95 “There is more love somewhere” – Jason Shelton Choir